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Glen
Arguen Garth
Hardir O’ Fardor
All monsters need feeding & a den
Part I
-A bout of bad luck-
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“Where?” Glen asked, all hunched up on the saddle. Sam Mathews sucked his upper lip in and bit it with his teeth standing next to him, with Alan Kirk and Enoch Bing. Maeriel flipped the arrow in her palm expertly and pointed it south. Glen stared at the twenty meters tall statues, most of them intact and still standing. They formed a straight road, twenty meters wide and dressed with red marble extending for a kilometer at least. Part of the weirdly decorated avenue lost in the morning mist. “How big?” He rustled and glanced at Phina riding her own mount proud, a young brown mare with a strikingly light gold mane she very fittingly called Glitter.
It was Glen’s gift for her birthday.
“A mature male,” Maeriel replied and walked confidently out of the bushes covering the platforms the statues stood upon, avoiding the muddy spots and sneaky branches on instinct. “He retreated for now.”
“Or circling around,” Sam Mathews grunted. The adventurer was always cranky in the mornings and Glen could respect that, seeing as himself was -a sleep as much as ye want kind of guy.
“When ye say mature…?” Glen started asking, but caught Phina raising her hand eagerly and paused. The teenage Zilan wore one of Zola’s outfits that Jinx had modified around her ‘tingly bits’ for reasons she left mysterious. Glen thought about enquiring what else the Gish had stashed away in her ever increasing loot bags, as he’d come to appreciate Zola’s sturdy leather attires. Nothing have lasted on him, as much as her old pair of pants.
“A mature male Nimra lion stands hey tall,” Phina said, all red in the face under his scrutiny. “They consider the size of their hunting grounds as far as their eyes could see.”
“What if its night, or a misty day?” Glen probed and Maeriel span the arrow in her hand and slotted it in the wooden quiver she had over her right shoulder without checking first.
Jinx used to do that all the time, so Glen didn’t find it very impressive.
Now had she skewered her head through that long pointy ear that would have been something worth of note for sure!
Hehe.
“Ahm, Nimra see better in the dark Arguen Garth,” Phina whispered.
“They do?” Glen grimaced. “What does that mean?” He asked the flustered Zilan.
“Hardir,” Maeriel cautioned him.
“Noble Keeper,” Phina replied looking at her saddle.
“Huh,” Glen said standing back. “Well then, I’ve heard worse I suppose,” He started, but saw Maeriel’s disapproving stare, another thing she’d gotten from Jinx and paused. “I like it,” He added and Phina’s eyes turned all misty and a warmer shade of gold.
“Phinariel,” Maeriel cut through the moment. “Go to Jinx. She’ll show you how to track.”
“Lovely girl,” Glen commented watching Glitter taking Phina away. “Very friendly.”
“You shouldn’t encourage her,” Maeriel said disapprovingly, adding seeing his frown. “Hardir.”
“You know what huntress?” Glen retorted, not likening her cantor, or innuendos. “Put Arguen afore that next time. Ye should also run after her and Whisper. Anything happens to either of them, I’m blaming you.”
Maeriel pressed her lips tight, but then gave a slight a nod with her head.
“Arguen Garth,” She hissed and rushed after the galloping Phina on foot.
“She didn’t like that,” Sam Mathews commented. “You done it on purpose.”
“Whisper is my friend,” Glen grunted. “Being her lover doesn’t elevate her status and I had her adequately compensated for what she brings to the table.”
“That’s a lot of strays.”
“Anfalon has won the strays over,” Glen explained. “She doesn’t control shit, but Whisper.”
Which of course mattered to Glen more than all the strays combined, so that was a lot of influence the huntress wielded, but he couldn’t allow her to run amok with it.
They were walking on a tight rope with all their god darn factions already.
“Fast girl though,” Sam pointed after clearing his throat and they both watched the nimble former Imperial Hunter nearing the trotting mounted Phina with an impressive burst of speed.
“Aye,” Glen yielded. “Though she cheats a lot. All of them do.”
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Outlaw neighed and then snorted loudly.
“Whoa buddy,” Glen said soothingly. “Let me have a look at it.”
He jumped down and stooped near the horse’s front legs to see what bothered it.
“Sharp rocks aplenty,” Sam commented, looking down from his own mount.
“Aye. We stop here for now,” Glen agreed cleaning up the horse’s hooves and touching the nicks and cuts on them. “We’ll turn them lame otherwise.”
“We stop,” Sam informed the others turning his head around. “See to gather wood for a fire lads.”
“You’re fixin’ for an officer’s position Mathews?” Kirk taunted, after he climbed down his mount. “Because ye ain’t in the Dogs last time I checked.”
“I’m an adventurer mate,” Sam replied. “No ranks in me profession.”
“Ye want wood, fetch it yerself adventurer,” Kirk retorted.
Glen stared at the mercenary for a moment.
“Fetch the wood mister Kirk,” He cautioned him and the ex-soldier stood down.
“Right away milord.”
“I can understand the Zilan superstition and all that,” Sam said after the duo had walked away. “But he’s going overboard. What were you before all this Garth? Who was Glen?”
“Does it matter?” Glen replied and turned to stare at the broken giant head of the statue standing in front of the massive flat top red pyramid and temple complex. “What was Sam Mathews afore he turned into an adventurer?”
“As you said Garth,” Sam replied with a nod. “It doesn’t matter.”
“That’s right,” Glen agreed and pointed at the decapitated statue that was also missing an arm and part of its torso, the debris unrecognizable at the base of the platform. “Who was that dude?”
Sam Mathews shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ve no god darn idea, but that pyramid is bigger than the one in Rida.”
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Glen almost got a mouthful of black coal, the standing brazier unseen in the darkness of the extended interior, almost flipping over his head.
“What in the slovenly fuck?” He cursed after finding his footing, his right knee stinging. Glen waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the surroundings for a moment.
“There’s three meters of entrance silly,” Jinx chuckled seeing him doubled over. “Why scrapping the edge of it?”
“I never walk through the middle. That’s for fools and cocks,” Glen explained to her a little annoyed. “Got a bout of bad luck today. Outlaw almost went lame earlier. No other horse was affected.”
“You’re superstitious,” Jinx replied. “You’re the luckiest person I know.”
“Well,” Glen said, you just gave it another spin there ye dumpass. Thanks a fuckin’ lot. “Anyone here?”
“The priest is living in the side building,” Jinx explained. “Very inhospitable. He was shoveling shite at my feet whilst I talked wit him!”
“Eh, the Zilan are like that. How about the temple? Anything in here?”
Worth of looting was his meaning.
“The stairs leading upstairs are barred,” Jinx reported and glanced at Phina and Maeriel giving thanks knelt afore the massive altar of the Goddess. The life-like statue sitting on a marble throne, her robes painted blue, just like her long hair. They cascaded down her torso, the carvings incredible and the thin material ballooning there, afore narrowing again towards her waist. Nesande’s statue ‘stood’ at almost five meters in height. The braziers on either side of her throne burning in a light red-blue glow, casting shadows on her comely, but austere face.
Glen would have sworn he’d seen that face again.
A bit aged and worn out perhaps.
Not as well endowed.
The Seer at Merchant’s Triage.
“She’s the mother of Magic. Very ‘maternal’,” Jinx explained seeing his silent contemplation and mistaking it for something else. “And visions of course, but that’s more difficult to depict in art.”
Eh, I don’t think so.
“Why is the fire blue?” Glen asked evenly, clasping his hands behind his back wearing his smug didactic face.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“It’s a stone they place in it,” Jinx explained. “It makes you see stuff in it, if yer gifted,” She paused and stared at him surprised. “Whoa. Ye got me there Glen. Fuck.”
“You’re okay?” Glen asked her.
“Uhm,” Jinx bobbed her pink head up and down, long pony tail dancing behind it. “Ye want to check upstairs afore the priest comes back?”
“I thought it was barred,” Glen enquired raising a brow.
“Wit a lock. Tis a big one, but plenty old. We can fiddle wit it a bit. Maybe give it a kick,” She added lowering her voice.
Uh? What are we?
A couple of shoddy crooks?
Glen stared at her blankly, his left arm sneaking inside his trusted old satchel. There weren’t many gold coins left in it, but he’d moved his ‘tools’ there.
“Glen?” Jinx asked sounding worried. “Ye turned all weird in the face.”
“Lead the way,” Glen rustled austerely and tossed her a lightstone he’d ‘liberated’ from an abandoned villa earlier that week. A couple of them were neatly placed in an ivory jewelry box. A firestone arranged as a pendant, the chain made of white gold being the highlight. “Watch yer step.”
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“Where’s Soren?” Glen asked her whilst he worked on the fancy old lock. He didn’t bother with the heavy padlock on the chains barring the way. The steel on them impressive and crisscrossing the metal door, but loose enough and leaving enough room for a nimble hard-working honest professional to squeeze through.
Assuming he managed to pop open the sturdy lock of the door that is.
“Wit Soletha,” Jinx replied watching him testing his different picks awed. “Gathering herbs and stuff.”
“Stuff?” Glen asked, choosing a thicker bent lockpick and mounting the small plier on the one he’d inserted earlier.
“Eh, he likes her. Soren has a fondness for motherly females,” Jinx murmured. “Are these Alix’s tools?”
“Some,” Glen replied, glancing at her while testing the mechanism, his ears waiting for the sweet release sound. Come on ye rusty fuck. Ah, where is it…
“He didn’t teach ye how to do that eh?” Jinx asked.
“A guy learns a trade,” Glen started and heard the clicking of the lock. “Stashes it away for a rainy day. Are you surprised?”
“Yer a walking surprise Glen. Always had been,” Jinx admitted.
“Is that bad?” Glen probed turning the lockpick ever slowly and to the release point.
“It works on some girls,” Jinx confessed, just as the lock popped with a clanging sound.
“Some?” He teased.
“Yer getting nothing more,” Jinx warned him.
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“Wait,” Glen gasped five minutes later, stuck in the small space the chains left. “Fuck’s sake.”
Jinx, who’d gone through without a hitch paused and looked behind her back with a grin and her pink left eyebrow pointing up.
“Yer getting fat,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“What? No, I’m not,” came Glen’s affronted retort, whilst he puffed and huffed to unstuck himself. “I’ve muscles in all places Gish!”
“And plenty of pure lard on that arse,” Jinx commented. “You should train wit Anfalon and his students to burn away some of it.”
“Arggh,” Glen growled thrashing to escape the accursed chains. “You’ve moved ‘em going in damn you!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Grab my arm!”
“Eh, sure.”
“On three,” Glen said and Jinx yanked him through afore he finished talking. Glen bumped on the smaller Gish and took her down with him. He was too bulky for Jinx to bear and they both collapsed on the dusty, web-covered granite-tiled floor.
“Help,” Jinx gasped under him and Glen pushed himself to the side so she could breathe. “Fuck, ye almost killed me,” the female Gish murmured.
“I said on three Whisper!” Glen blasted her, rubbing at his tender shoulder.
Jinx stared at him blankly, a large spider web covering her head.
Glen groaned in frustration and got up. He helped her up as well, then cleaned her hair from the old webs. “Right,” he said when he finished, his eyes burning at the bright light of the lightstones. “Stay behind me. Don’t touch anything.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
“That can’t be a rule!” Jinx protested and he turned his head around to admonish her, almost blinding himself in the process.
“It is. Stop shoving the light in my face for crying out loud!” Glen retorted irate. “Back away. Now. Give me some room. One more step. Good grief!”
God darn amateurs.
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The heavy door led to a narrow corridor, with rooms on each side every four meters or so. The corridor seemed to run the interior side of the temple. The outer rooms had sloped walls and were claustrophobic even by cheap inn standards.
Same for the internal row of rooms, but with the interior wall tilted inversely.
“Bedrooms,” Glen commented after they checked the fourth in a row and found nothing of value inside, but an old large chest with creamy silk sheets.
“For the priestesses?” Jinx replied stooped at the waist and half inside the chest. She kept rummaging through the contents, pulling different and mostly ruined sheets out on the floor.
“Aye. Once upon a time, not much use for so many rooms, after the place went boom,” Glen replied with a grimace of frustration. “What in Luthos dirty toes are ye looking for?”
“Hmm?” Jinx murmured and feeling the bottom of the chest replied thoughtfully. “Usually the best preserved stuff are pretty low.”
“Jewelry?” Glen chanced eyeing the narrow corridor.
“An intact sheet,” Jinx corrected him holding the one she picked. “See? No mold, or wormy things on it,” she added with a toothy grin. “I cut it here,” she showed him on her. “Leave the side open and held by cords, just above the knee. If I fold it twice, I can make two of them. It’ll have fantastic sheerness under light, but no tits in your face stuff despite worn over naked skin.”
Might as well the Gish had talked about engineering, but for the cut part. Glen stared at her numbly, afore noting. “That’s under the armpit Whisper.”
All the way down.
“It’s a roomy cut Glen in case a girl has to dance,” Jinx explained with a silly and mostly failed wink.
Right.
Glen scrunched his nose, then used a sleeve to wipe the sweat off his face, his clever eyes following the parallel walls appearing to meet in the distance. An illusion of course, Voron had told him that. The distance between though, or the length, you can always measure, the architect had added, if you’re on an uninterrupted plane. You just walk over it and count.
“Let’s find the corner,” he said. “Keep checking inside the rooms.”
“Eh, this could take us well into the evening Glen,” Jinx protested. Glen whipped his head around and glared at her.
“We are at work here Whisper,” he admonished her. “You need to learn to put yer head down and push through to get it done. No slacking. Work is life.”
Jinx fiddled with the sheet she’d thrown over her outfit, freed an arm and then showed him her mid finger.
“You just proved my point,” Glen said and started walking, Jinx rushing after him chuckling.
“Yer just making stuff up as you go along,” she teased. “Silly goose.”
“It’s called thinking Whisper,” Glen retorted.
“Pretty sure most folk call it lying.”
“There’s an inward curve to the internal wall,” Glen explained what she couldn’t see. “The pyramid may be sloped but runs at a straight line on its sides creating a square base.”
“Fuck do you know there is? I can barely see five meters ahead,” Jinx griped.
“I counted the tiles,” Glen replied. “Six across at the barred entrance, then six and something, six and a half over there,” he pointed at the sides of the internal wall, where the smaller cut pieces had been added to give more width to the corridor. “Seven.”
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“Ten,” he announced more than a hundred meters later, with not even a quarter of the corridor covered. “How many rooms until now?”
“Over forty,” Jinx replied.
“No priestesses ever lived here. Not in these dark, moldy and bare tiny rooms,” Glen decided, whilst stooped to examine the bulge on the tiled floor. The mortared depressions between the granite pieces worn out by time and many people walking over them. “These were slave quarters. Some more favored than others, but slaves nonetheless. Hence the heavy lock on the door and the austere, no engravings, no nothing, narrow walls. No windows. This looks like a prison.”
Hmm, why did you need this extra space though? The floor starts narrowing down after this point. There’s nothing up here.
Unless…
“Oh shit,” Jinx gasped realizing he was right. “Where did the slaves go?”
Glen stood up, his face dark. He stared at the endless corridor following one side of the pyramid and calculated the number of cells, multiplied by four, for the sides. He raised his boot and stabbed it hard on the tiled floor. The sound coming back hollow, but muffled.
He stepped forward and did it again.
“The fire had burned everything,” Glen murmured listening for a change in the echo coming from below. “Crops and plants, animals. No food for months, not if you stayed here.”
“They left. Soletha told me they returned years after,” Jinx pointed.
“Soletha had been exiled, the volcano eruption gave her an excuse to return, after saving her life,” Glen explained, trying again and listening for differences. “Laedan and Vaelenn’s people though stayed back. They had their homes intact, most of them and they knew where there was food safely locked up.”
Jinx gasped in shock and Glen brought his boot down hard and heard something different. A clanging coming from the corridor wall between two cells.
“You think—” Jinx tried to say, but he stopped her.
“What’s in here?”
“A cell. Has nothing in it. Ye picked the fully empty one,” Jinx replied pouting. “Why?”
“No bed, not even the remains of it? A box, sack, cot, something?” they’d found something showing a human presence in almost every cell.
“No. Seriously can we go now? I don’t like this place.”
Glen went in to check for himself, disregarding her hysterics.
Where the curve reached its peak, the Zilan had put an empty cell. The interior walls bricked with smaller cut granite pieces, shaped like cubes. Glen stared at the wall facing the corridor and this time he used the tip of his boot to kick the almost hollowed out last cube of the whole lot. The cube clicked with a metallic sound and came out. Glen stooped and grabbed it.
Pulled it out even more, heard the rattling of chains and pulleys working, the floor shaking.
“Fuck,” Jinx gasped still standing outside. “You fucking collapsed half the floor Glen! Are you serious? I was standing next to it!”
Another way in, or out? Something else? Glen thought impressed.
“Are there stairs in it?” He asked evenly with a last look at what was probably a Warden’s post, or a guard’s.
“The hole?”
“Yes.”
“How should I know?” Jinx yelled very pissed. “It’s dark as a rat’s arse!”
Eh.
“Look!” He bellowed back and started moving. “Use the plaguin’ lightstone. It’s why I gave it to you in the first fucking place!”
“Well,” she said a moment later. Glen was standing next to her by then. “That’s a step. Right?”
Indeed my dear Whisper, Glen agreed, staring at the dark foreboding opening.
It is.
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It looks sturdy, Glen thought stepping on it and lowering his head, while keeping the light in front of him to avoid smacking his head on the granite tilted wall. A helm was needed here, but a helm is cumbersome and hot as an oven in the summer.
Wetull is a warm place. You couldn’t tell it under the dark, sturdy walls of the pyramid, but it is. No warmer than the desert, but enough to justify leaving the helm on Outlaw. In retrospect he should have shown the light on the steps more and take his chances with the inclined roof of the narrow stone staircase.
Four steps down there was a gap, be it due to a broken tile, or some idiot Zilan economizing on the material, Glen’s foot went in it found a void and rolled on instinct forward to find steadier ground. He did –not two steps down, but because he was coming at an arc -half in his tumble and the darn stairs kept on going for another fifty meters afore the first corner, Glen kept on tumbling in the dark.
Never such a perilous clearing of steps had been attempted in the past.
If it was, no one had survived to tell the tale and claim the record, which is kind of the same thing.